


Impermanence

by mr-finch (soubriquet)



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dubious Consent, Gen, M/M, Ownership, Pre-Canon, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:45:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soubriquet/pseuds/mr-finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the same universe as <a href="http://reallyprivateperson.tumblr.com/post/31316957230/the-raven-of-odin-poi-au-finch-reese">The Raven Of Odin</a>. Mark Snow, having spent over a year under the tutelage of Byrd, needs a reminder of who he is.</p><p>"So what is it, some kind of brand?" Mark asks, from the chair that he's currently seated on backwards, shirtless, with his back curved and spine raised and pinpricks of sweat beading his skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impermanence

"So what is it, some kind of brand?" Mark asks, from the chair that he's currently seated on backwards, shirtless, with his back curved and spine raised and pinpricks of sweat beading his skin. 

Byrd is also seated but leaning so close that Mark can feel his breath on his back, hot puffs of air, as if from the nostrils of a resting bull, and the instrument held in his hand is what's currently causing Snow to sweat. 

He doesn't answer at first, which is no surprise, given their history of interaction. The tattoo gun buzzes between them, causing Mark's fists to clench instinctively and he grits his teeth as the needle bears its mark onto his skin.

"I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise," comes his answer, eventually, and Mark makes a noise of frustration but doesn't move: that's the point, it's all for nothing if he stops this. If Mark baulks at this fence and stands up, if he makes any move towards suggesting he's no longer okay with it, the point is annulled. 

He fucked up. He fucked up, big time, and this is his punishment: the slow, tortuous methodology of Henry Byrd making sure he doesn't forget his place again. Mark of a year ago may have objected to this, but Mark of today nigh on welcomes it. It's the part that neither of them overtly acknowledges, because to point it out would do the same as Mark refusing this right now.

It annuls the point. It makes sacrifice worthless. Acknowledging that Mark Snow  _wants_  Byrd's brand on him would shatter the structure that allows them to work as they do: this sundry and flawed agent and his once-torturer. 

He sometimes wonders what Byrd expected to find of their working arrangement; how exactly he expected it to be. Snow would bet a lot of money that this was not high on the list of his expectations (but then, Snow would lose a lot of money if it was worth it), because sometimes the layers of code between them make no sense to him, either. They have become, or are, perhaps,  _becoming,_  something instinctual, unnameable. 

Something like a mark on his back, a tattoo of Byrd's choosing, that had only been requested in the way that Byrd requests things of him (an order phrased as direction). Something that hurts, that sets Snow's teeth on edge with the way it brings back old memories, something that makes him sweat and be aware of every sense and makes his old wound start to shake.

Don't ask silly questions, and Byrd won't play silly games. Without the right questions, Mark knows he will get nowhere, and that's just frustrating on his part, without the gain.

"You can feel it, can't you, Agent?" The tattoo gun momentarily stops buzzing behind him, and the air assaults his back, making what seems like a line - no, a cross - feel like a burn that Byrd is knitting together.

"It's a- a symbol," Mark says, face flushing in response to the heat. "I don't recognise it, specifically."

"You will," Byrd says, and fiddles with the machine for a moment before returning it to Snow's back, continuing the process.

Its positioning was not his to choose, although he did not attempt to choose it - the tattoo is on his right shoulder-blade, his infraspinatus muscle, about the size of the palm of his hand. It is situated right over where most anyone would touch if they wanted to clap him on the shoulder, but will naturally be hidden beneath layers of clothes and known only to those involved: the two parties in this strange coalition of praise and ownership.

He still can't make out what it is. Mark has his attention focused on analysing it, because the wayward parts of his brain that aren't wholly focused can and will ping back and forth, bringing home memories that he would rather not relive and encouraging cold feet which he cannot exhibit.

And when these memories surface, his right leg that he's using as an anchor to keep himself grounded (rather than the left, which is curved up beneath him), starts to shake in a manner that cannot just be restless. It's a weakness. They have worked on Mark's tells, especially those that flare up around Byrd, but this one only makes its appearance in extremes. At moments like this, when his body remembers the nearness of this other man, his direction, his touch and what he did, and if none of these were Byrd himself it doesn't matter, because in a dark room where the only voice was Byrd's, the director and his peon were one and the same.

Mark's fuck-up, tonight, was not a verbal fault. Rarely does his mouth get him in the doghouse just for swearing - if it did, he'd spend a lot more time there. Today - tonight's - screw up was forgetting who he is now. For one moment longer than necessary, he was Mark Steele instead of Mark Snow. His old name rather than the new.

He's been Snow for just over a year, now, but he was born a Steele and part of his training with Byrd has been to eradicate that part of him. There is no line of inheritance or blood within this unit; what Kara will come later to call walking in the dark is their raison d'être and any straying outside of that can only bring dissent and destruction.

It's why he's crouching here, on this chair, with the wooden back digging into his forearms where he's leaning on it and his right leg quavering. Like a dog that has disobeyed, this punishment is earned and it has always been up to Byrd to decide what that will be.

There are some things that cannot be eradicated - the shaking, for one. They've tried. Both the good and the bad, and neither have worked. Snow's animal backbrain won't respond to praise or discouragement in this one thing, and so while the subject has been supposedly dropped, it remains as a point of consternation for him. One part of himself that remembers hating the man he works for, or worse, fearing him.

He doesn't fear him now; not even with a needle in his hand rendering Snow's skin into black. Not even with his bare back turned and more nerves in his spine exposed than were ever accessible in his thigh. It may not be trust, but there's a certain faith in the balance between them. Whether or not Byrd shares that view, it works for him.

Slow breath. Concentrate on the lines - forget the part where it feels like he's scarring you, think about the pattern, the shape. A cross, and then... lines, branching off on each.

Mark snorts, and shakes his head. "Tell me it's not a snowflake."

Byrd's hand - the one splayed flat on Mark's back, bracing him while he works on the tattoo with his other hand - shifts, changes position, and Byrd himself moves his chair closer, altering the angle, ending up much closer to Snow to his dismay.

"The first time you killed a man," Byrd continues, as if just picking up on the thread of a conversation from before, "You believed you had failed. You were dissatisfied with the outcome of your mission and you questioned the ability of the CIA."

Mark stays quiet, head turned firmly back towards the rest of the room without Byrd in it. 

"You were right," Byrd says, adjusting his angle as the thin black line crawls up Snow's back. "The CIA is a farce, but you and I within it are what make it formidable."  _And others,_  comes the unsaid addition. 'You and I' and Kara and every agent Byrd has ever trained, or recommended. "Never forget that, Mark."

"After this? Doubt it."

There's a pause, then the machine clicks off and Byrd sets it aside, swapping it for ointment that goes onto his gloved hands, then onto Mark, who keeps his teeth gritted and refuses to move. As far as an education in pain tolerance goes, there isn't one much more effective these days than a stint with his predecessor, but it has been a while. 

There's still enough adrenaline in his system to mute the effects of the hand wiping away excess ink and covering reddened skin in cooler ointment. Enough for him to wonder whether Byrd can feel his elevated heart-rate through his back, and whether he cares.

"You can turn around, now."

Mark extricates himself from the chair in a mildly painful fashion: he's a war machine, but he has been clenching himself in that same position for over an hour and the parts of him that aren't sore have fallen asleep.

He turns, then gingerly sinks back into the chair the right way around, avoiding any contact between it and his new tattoo. Byrd is sitting with his usual circular glasses and beige expression looking back at him, blue-gloved hands covered in streaks of black: the only part of him that looks disheveled. 

Byrd moves to unravel the gloves off his hands, his gaze falling to follow the movement, and it looks to Mark like he has something to say, but only when the gloves are deposited on the table does Byrd speak. It's not even in words, just a glance. 

Mark also looks down at his right leg, in surprise, and the shaking rhythm starts up again when he notices the lack of it, like a phantom pain that only exists because he expects it to. "H-"  _How long?_

"Since I asked you not to forget." Byrd's gaze is like a falcon's, piercing and powerful.

Before now, Snow has only responded negatively to the use of his name, especially his first, by Byrd, likely because it harkens back to old times between the two of them. His leg - thigh, really, obturator nerve - has always reacted most strongly to his name, even more than touch, which makes right now all the more interesting.

"Hm," Mark says, and shuts his mouth, unable to keep from glancing down at his knee now and then to check its progress.

Byrd pulls his sleeves back up to his wrists. "While I would prefer to keep that particular tell at bay, we are running a unit, not a parlour." There could be a glimmer of humour in his otherwise impartial manner. "Could it be replicated elsewhere?"

Mark's attention draws back to Byrd from where he's leaning back against the wood of his chair. His shirt's halfway across the room, and why bother to go get it; there are much worse states Byrd has seen him in. "You want to hurt me again? Not that that's surprising, at all."

The even expression that looks back at him from a pit that Mark suspects is derision is enough of a reply.

"I think..." He raises one hand, pushes his palm against his temple in the universal gesture of the exhausted. "We had a lot of free time this evening. That doesn't happen very often, but it has its uses. So, if we want to bury this, we should maybe schedule in a few more sessions. Not tattoos. Something else." Mark finishes his little speech and awaits the reaction. If this wasn't so strange, between them, he'd offer to go drinking once a week.

Byrd doesn't give him a reaction, per se. He stands, instead, with the air of someone who is about to depart, and looks down at Snow from across the room. "Remember who you have decided to be, Agent. You were someone else, once, but you're no longer the man they sent me."

"Because of you?"

"Yes," Byrd answers. "To expect no influence from one's associates is irrational." His hand raises momentarily off the back of his chair, then pats down again. "For instance, here I am talking to you, when I have twelve reports to read through for tomorrow."

Mark smiles, and accidentally brushes his shoulder, setting off a flare of heat that tightens his expression. "I'm not sure why I'm keeping you."

"You're a good agent, Mark, but you do occasionally miss the obvious." Byrd might be irritated, might be amused. It's all relative. "A flake of snow: a feathered ice crystal, typically displaying sixfold symmetry. It will heal in three weeks, give or take."

He unhooks his jacket from the back of the chair and slides it on. "Keep applying the ointment, don't let it get dry. Someone will be in here to clean this place up soon, so I suggest you don't spend the night."

No, Mark isn't going to sleep in a spare office, not even if he's radiated enough warmth to heat the whole room.

"Your car will be here at 8am tomorrow," Byrd says, regarding him from in front of the closed, now unlocked, door. "I won't be on your flight, this time."

He turns to open the door, but Mark gets up at last and Byrd pauses. Snow sets his hands on the table before he can think about it, as if he can catch him before he leaves just by leaning across. "Wait- What was it? That I missed?"

"Your leg," Byrd says, as he turns back to the handle and opens the door. "You're not thinking about it."


End file.
